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Feb 15, 2017

Diablo 3 Prepared Me For The Anxieties of Planning My Wedding

With pure luck and a crappy costume, I met my significant other at a
sci-fi convention. Our relationship blossomed around our shared passion
for nerdy things, and we got engaged at WonderCon. Thus started our next
adventure: planning, and paying for, a wedding. Surprisingly, Diablo played a big role in the process.

Planning a wedding is incredibly stressful. You’ve got to decide on
flowers, tastings, dresses, mothers, plane tickets, venues, parking,
down payments, suits, rehearsals, guest lists, DJ’s, and so much more.
They say that the first year of marriage is the first big test on a
relationship, but that’s a lie. The first big test is not killing each
other as you plan a wedding.

As soon as we set our wedding
date, we started to get snippy with each other. Date nights and
wedding-free discussion meals weren’t cutting it. We needed an outlet to
destroy our stress just so we could sleep soundly. Some of our normal
hobbies, like cosplay, had to be shelved for a while because we were
footing the bill for our wedding. Gaming started to take over, as it was
relatively cheap, and we could both had enormous backlogs to tackle.

We tried a ton of games out together in our effort to find an outlet: LEGO, Halo, Borderlands. All of those were good fun, and yet they also sparked some frustration. Then we tried Diablo 3.

As a Blizzard die-hard, I knew what I was getting into. I had already cleared out Diablo 3 on PC and was looking forward to finally playing Reaper of Souls, but my wife was skeptical. It didn’t help that early in our relationship, World of Warcraft caused some tension between us. I recognized the worry in her face when the Blizzard logo came on the screen for Diablo 3.

She
was relieved when she found out how addicting smashing goblins for loot
was and, more importantly, that it was easy to pick up and put down.
The feedback loop of smash > loot > equip > smash > loot
> equip grabbed her, and she loved decking out her Demon Hunter in
ridiculous helmets and boots. We would play for a few bounties in one
session, and then a couple days later turn in our keystones to tackle
the challenges of the rifts together. And if it was too much, we would
just kick the difficulty down a bit.

Worked 12 hours yesterday, so tonight is going to be what I am now dubbing @Diablo date night with my lovely fiancee @dingos8myTARDIS

Three weeks after we installed Diablo on our Xbox One, her
Maid of Honor flew into town to visit us over the holiday season. We had
finished about half of Act III together, and knew exactly what we
wanted to get our guest for Christmas. We explicitly told her to bring
her controller so we could all play together. After our gift exchange,
the three of us all rolled new characters and as we approached the
Butcher my wife jokingly said “That’s the shade of red I want the
groomsmen’s ties”. That’s when it clicked for both of us: we could use Diablo to help plan our wedding.

My groomsmen and I, in our Butcher Red-Ties

From that point on we were able to beat the snot out of demons while
talking about all aspects of wedding planning, big and small. We began
to work Diablo into our busy schedule just for the stress
release. We discussed our liquor list over Greater Rift challenges,
narrowed down our rehearsal dinner spot while changing skill trees, and
found the song that we used for our first dance to thanks to a playlist
we listen to while saving heaven. For some reason Rainbow Connection just works when Tyrael is going on about the strength and virtue of the Nephalem. Hell, we even put New Tristram in our cocktail hour playlist.

While Diablo does get co-op right on PC, on consoles it
shines. Compared to other ports, and co-op games in general, there are
so many great changes Blizzard made when it brought Diablo to
consoles. Unlike shooters that cut the screen in half for local play,
there is no sacrifice to screen space. You can look at your TV and get
the lay of the land instantly. The game will teleport your team to each
other to keep the party together. You can join a game in progress
without having to go out to the main menu. It’s a wonderful console
experience.

One of our many planning sessions with the Maid of Honor

While planning our wedding, talking about white and red wines took on
a similar tone to discussing what legendaries would be best for our
characters. “This merlot is really good, but if you change the side item
from potatoes to bacon cooked brussels sprouts this cabernet pairs
better” felt similar to “This helmet is really good, but if you change
Entangling Shot to Evasive Fire, that helmet is better.” Discussing
complex comparisons became easier because of Diablo. Diablo kept us
grounded to reality, because ultimately we knew that in six or seven
levels (or weeks) no one would care what armor (or wine) we picked.

This love for Diablo has even translated to other games. My wife can now keep up with Heroes of the Storm
because she has a certain affinity for the characters, even if Nova is
“the demon hunter from spaaaaaace”. When we went to lunch a few months
ago as BlizzCon was happening she instantly demanded I tell her any
Diablo news. Both her and I can’t wait for Season mode to finally hit
consoles.

But even with that bright light approaching I already know what our
first fight as a married couple is going to be: which one of us will get
to be the Necromancer?